Saturday Farm Report

Have you ever thought about what it takes to get your food to your table? I didn't, for a long time. Now I do, because most of the farm work I do here is taking care of animals that I will eat someday. Some of you are probably grossed out or even offended by that. John once took a turkey dinner to a function. A whole turkey dinner, most of which (the turkey, the potatoes, the beans) had been grown here at Pine Ridge Farm. One of the attendees, on learning that he had "known" this turkey, refused to eat it. -sigh-

But, in short, get over it. Someone somewhere knew and raised every animal you eat.

So my farm report today will include some measure of what it takes.

When I got up this morning, I remembered that yesterday we received between 6 and 8 inches of snow. It's hard to tell, because we aren't close to the measuring stations, and wind blows pretty hard in this area. Even if we do have an inch or two less than elsewhere, it may be piled up in such a way that it appears we have an inch or two more. I fixed a bucket of milk for Jr, and headed out to the barn. The snow is about a foot deep now. That makes the gates stick, and, actually, Jr's sticks so badly that I have to kick it open. I let him out for the milk, because he shares quarters with the goats and they snitch from him. While he ate, a goat got loose. That's because, now that the gate was open, it wouldn't shut properly, as snow had fallen in and blocked its path. So I dug and chipped and still couldn't get the gate to close properly.

John showed up with buckets of water. We don't have water at the barn, so it has to be carried. In the summer, of course, we run hoses. But those freeze. John's regretting all the weekends he planned to run water to the barn and got distracted instead! Before he filled the cows' trough, he had to dig out their gate. After he filled the trough, he came over and dug and chipped and finally fixed the goats' gate.

More water had to be carried for the goats, hay for the cows, and more shoveling and sweeping had to be done before we were finished in the barn.

Next came the chicken coop. No digging had to be done there, because the little princesses won't go outside when that white stuff is on the ground! It's a hoot to see them sitting by the open door, looking but not venturing out. One time I managed to spook three out into the yard. They flew a few feet, but would not move from where they had landed. I had to go and "rescue" each of them, as they would have let their feet freeze rather than walk the three feet to safe, warm ground.

Water had to be carried for the chickens. Water can be more trouble than just having to be carried. Our faucets freeze up in the winter, and either need to have hot water dumped over them before they work, or, my favorite method, they need to be "huffed" on. You know what I mean by that, right? I cup my hands around the faucet, open my mouth, and breathe out, long and slow. Three "huffs" usually opens the faucet. Not this week, though. It's supposed to get so cold before Christmas that I'll resort to hot water. But that seems like a waste to me, most of the time.

Really, thinking about it, our farm chores are minimal. Just very physical. Farmers with many more animals than we do do more work than we do. How many of you would be happy to get up early on a snowy Saturday to go to a cow barn and meet the vet? How happy would you be to help him for an hour, knowing that that would put your milking chores back that amount of time? So, when you're done helping the vet do his job, you still have yours to do? That's what happened today at the farm where we buy our milk.

One of our neighbors is permanently bent and hunched from years of milking cattle. Another neighbor used to raise hogs. He was spoiled; he had automatic feeders that enabled him to just flip a switch and feed his piggies. But those aren't foolproof, as they found out more than once. His daughter remembers coming home from midnight Christmas Eve service and feeding hogs in her dress clothes, because the feeder took a vacation.

Farmers don't do that. And you should thank the good Lord for them. Everything you put on your table comes from their hard work and energy. I really think everyone should have to spend some time working in two venues; a fast food restaurant and a farm. In the one, you learn to be grateful for menial labor. (I doubt that, if you worked at Culver's for a month, you'd ever cuss out the drive-in kid for a silly mistake.) In the second, you'd learn just what it really takes to feed a family.

And I bet you'd be grateful for it!